System and method for reliable and scalable health monitoring

ABSTRACT

A health-monitoring system and method are disclosed. The health-monitoring system and method comprise a sensory system and a sensory to front-end communication (SFCM) protocol coupled to the sensory system. The health-monitoring system and method include a front-end system coupled to the sensory system and a front-end to back-end communication (FBCM) protocol coupled to the front-end system. The health-monitoring system and method include a back-end system. The SFCM protocol communicates with the front-end system using a first state awareness link and the FBCM protocol communicates with the back-end system using a second state awareness link.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to health monitoring, and moreparticularly, to a system and method for reliable and scalable healthmonitoring.

BACKGROUND

Monitoring systems are used in a variety of applications includingmonitoring the health of individuals. Conventional health monitoringsystems typically include a combination of underlying systems or devicecomponents such as sensors, recording systems, and storage units.Software is integrated with the hardware of each device component to aidthe communication of data between each device component of theconventional health monitoring system.

These conventional health monitoring systems typically havepredetermined hardware and software architectures for each devicecomponent. However, if one of these device components is either updatedwith new hardware or replaced with a different device component, thecommunication of data is disrupted and the software integrated with thehardware of each device component must be updated to match the newunderlying device configuration of the conventional health monitoringsystem which is time consuming and costly. In some instances, the newunderlying device configuration is incompatible or it is impossible toupdate the software to restore the communication of data and so theentire health monitoring system must be replaced.

In addition, the communication of data within the health monitoringsystem can be interrupted due to a limitation of the technology such asone device component being out of the operating range of another devicecomponent or power source failures. In this situation, the communicationof data is retried until it is received or the transmittance isterminated. As a result, the communication of data between the devicecomponents is not independent of the underlying health monitoring systeminfrastructure.

These issues limit the interchangeability and scalability of the devicecomponents within the health monitoring system. Therefore, there is astrong need for a cost-effective solution that overcomes the aboveissues by creating a highly reliable, fault tolerant and scalable healthmonitoring system that contains a clear communication path betweendevice components that is completely independent of underlyingarchitecture. The present invention addresses such a need.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A health-monitoring system and method are disclosed. In a first aspect,the health-monitoring system comprises a sensory system and a sensory tofront-end communication (SFCM) protocol coupled to the sensory system.The health-monitoring system includes a front-end system coupled to thesensory system and a front-end to back-end communication (FBCM) protocolcoupled to the front-end system. The health-monitoring system includes aback-end system. The SFCM protocol communicates with the front-endsystem using a first state awareness link and the FBCM protocolcommunicates with the back-end system using a second state awarenesslink.

In a second aspect, the method comprises providing a sensory system andcoupling a sensor to front-end communication (SFCM) protocol to thesensory system. The method includes coupling a front-end system to thesensory system and coupling a front-end to back-end communication (FBCM)protocol to the front-end system. The method includes coupling thefront-end system to a back-end system. The method includes communicatingdata between the SFCM protocol and the front-end system using a firststate awareness link and communicating data between the FBCM protocoland the back-end system using a second state awareness link.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying figures illustrate several embodiments of the inventionand, together with the description, serve to explain the principles ofthe invention. One of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that theparticular embodiments illustrated in the figures are merely exemplary,and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

FIG. 1 illustrates a health monitoring system in accordance with anembodiment.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of a data communication path inaccordance with an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention relates to health monitoring, and moreparticularly, to a system and method for reliable and scalable healthmonitoring. The following description is presented to enable one ofordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention and is providedin the context of a patent application and its requirements. Variousmodifications to the preferred embodiment and the generic principles andfeatures described herein will be readily apparent to those skilled inthe art. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited tothe embodiments shown but is to be accorded the widest scope consistentwith the principles and features described herein.

A system and method in accordance with the present invention allows fora multiple sensory system that logically connects to a front-end systemand in turn to a back-end system. These connections create ahealth-monitoring system with a clear data communication path that isindependent of the underlying architecture of the health-monitoringsystem. By utilizing state awareness methods and state awareness linksinto the sensory, the front-end, and the back-end systems, a highlyreliable and scalable health-monitoring system is achieved that cansupport a significant number of active users.

To describe the features of the present invention in more detail, refernow to the following description in conjunction with the accompanyingFigures.

Health-Monitoring System:

FIG. 1 illustrates a health-monitoring system 100 in accordance with anembodiment. The health-monitoring system 100 includes a sensory system102, a front-end system 104 coupled to the sensory system 102, and aback-end system 106 coupled to the front-end system 104. The sensorysystem 102 includes a sensor 120 coupled to a sensory to front-endcommunication (SFCM) protocol 122. The front-end system 104 includes aninterface 140 coupled to a front-end to back-end communication (FBCM)protocol 142 and the back-end system 106 includes a server 160.

The SFCM protocol 122 communicates with the front-end system 104 using afirst state awareness link and the FBCM protocol 142 communicates withthe back-end system using a second state awareness link. These stateawareness links enable each system within the health-monitoring system100 to detect and understand the underlying architecture of each othersystem and reestablish communications between systems.

One of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that the stateawareness links can detect and understand numerous types of dataincluding but not limited to state awareness information, transmitteddata and the conditions or states of both the transmitting and receivingdevices. Data related to the conditions or states of both thetransmitting and receiving devices includes but is not limited toinformation pertaining to the device types, revisions, modes and datastatuses.

Device type information may include the number of physical hardwaresensors present and the way in which sensory data is combined togetherto form a final data format. Device revision information may include thedata format versions of the sensory hardware or firmware or protocolstack id. Device mode information may include retry, error recovery,data loss, normal, alert, waiting for upgrade, and require customerprofile modes. Data status information may include fully encrypted data,critical data profiles or broken but recoverable data.

One of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that the sensor 120,the interface 140 and the server 160 can include a variety of devicesincluding but not limited to wireless sensors, collections of body vitalsign metrics in patch form, smart relays, cell phones, mobile devices,applications, and database servers and that would be within the spiritand scope of the present invention.

The sensor 120 includes a system on-a-chip hardware (SOC HW) 124, areal-time operating system (RTOS) 126, a hardware layer abstraction 128,at least one debug layer 130, a test module 132, a device driver 134,and at least one sensory communication (SCM) task 136 coupled to theSFCM protocol 122. In one embodiment, the at least one SCM task 136includes at least one computational task. One of ordinary skill in theart readily recognizes that the SOC HW 124, the RTOS 126, the hardwarelayer abstraction 128, the at least one debug layer 130, the test module132, the device driver 134 and the at least one SCM task can be coupledto each other in a variety of different ways and configurations or canbe stand-alone devices and that would be within the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

The interface 140 includes an operating system (OS) platform 144, adevice driver 146, at least one diagnostic layer 148, at least onefront-end communication (FCM) task 150 coupled to the FBCM protocol 142,a personal emergency response system (PERS) 152, and a user interface(UI) 154. The OS platform 144 can support a variety of operating systemsincluding but not limited to independent OS platforms. One of ordinaryskill in the art readily recognizes that the OS platform 144, the devicedriver 146, the at least one diagnostic layer 148, the at least one FCMtask 150, the PERS 152, and the UI 154 can be coupled to each other in avariety of different ways and configurations or can be stand-alonedevices and that would be within the spirit and scope of the presentinvention.

The server 160 includes a hardware (HW) platform 162, an operatingsystem (OS) 164, a database administrator (DBA) 166, a communication(COMM) channel driver 168, at least one diagnostic layer 170, a BCMprocess 172 coupled to the FBCM protocol 142, an application programminginterface (API) 174, and a user interface (UI) 176. The API 174 cansupport custom or partner user interfaces. One of ordinary skill in theart readily recognizes that that the HW platform 162, the OS 164, theDBA 166, the COMM channel driver 168, the at least one diagnostic layer170, the BCM process 127, the API 174 and the UI 176 can be coupled toeach other in a variety of different ways and configurations or can bestand-alone devices and that would be within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

Sensory System:

The RTOS 126 includes a variety of capabilities including but notlimited to having no task deadlock so there is a forced timed out withlogging, self-resetting for catastrophic recovery, abstracting allhardware registers so direct access of the bits/registers are notallowed, having error correction code (ECC) parity memory, and havingdatapath recovery. One of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizesthat the RTOS 126 may include a variety of other capabilities and thatwould be within the spirit and scope of the present invention.

The at least one debug layer 130 includes a variety of capabilitiesincluding but not limited to having non-production code, simulatingelectrocardiogram (ECG), measuring temperature, resistance,Micro-Electrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS), and blood oxygen saturation,simulating RF stacks, and having an error injection module where thesize target in the error injection mode is <10 Kbytes and the sizetarget in full-mode is <64 Kbytes. One of ordinary skill in the artreadily recognizes that the at least one debug layer 130 may include avariety of other capabilities and that would be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

The SFCM protocol 122 is a two way communication protocol that pairs thesensory system 102 with the front-end system 104. The SFCM protocol 122includes a variety of capabilities including but not limited to having astate awareness link, having the ability to miss and retry while settingup data communication paths, supporting multiple sensors, and supportingdifferent versions of the same type of sensor. One of ordinary skill inthe art readily recognizes that the SFCM protocol 122 may include avariety of other capabilities and that would be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

Front-End System:

The at least one FCM task 150 includes a variety of capabilitiesincluding but not limited to communicating with the at least one SCMtask 136 and the BCM process 172, having redundancy in thecommunication, operating with a fail-safe mechanism so an alarm occurswhen a pairing status is unavailable or unreliable, buffering sensordata, buffering the BMC process 172 data commands, and logging locationand date/time information. One of ordinary skill in the art readilyrecognizes that the at least one FCM task 150 may include a variety ofother capabilities and that would be within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

The FBCM protocol 142 is a two way communication protocol that pairs thefront-end system 104 with the back-end system 106. The FBCM protocol 142includes a variety of capabilities including but not limited to having astate awareness link, having the ability to miss and retry while settingup data communication paths, supporting multiple physical links (SMS ordata) in generic mode, and logging variable length data. One of ordinaryskill in the art readily recognizes that the FBCM protocol 142 mayinclude a variety of other capabilities and that would be within thespirit and scope of the present invention.

The device driver 146 includes a variety of capabilities including butnot limited to having a physical link driver mapping layer to ensure thedata communication path is independent of both the actual underlyingarchitecture of the front-end system 104 and the OS platform 144, andhaving a unified payload architecture. One of ordinary skill in the artreadily recognizes that the device driver 146 may include a variety ofother capabilities and that would be within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

The at least one diagnostic layer 148 includes a variety of capabilitiesincluding but not limited to having non-production code, simulating thedevice driver 146 protocol, simulating the UI 154, simulating the atleast one FCM task 150 for a higher level protocol, and having errorinjection. One of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that theat least one diagnostic layer 148 may include a variety of othercapabilities and that would be within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

The UI 154 includes a variety of capabilities including but not limitedto facilitating a user experience, having graphic and flow modulescustomized to the health-monitoring system 100, having user annotation,having a login procedure, and having its graphical display beprogrammable from the back-end system 106. One of ordinary skill in theart readily recognizes that the UI 154 may include a variety of othercapabilities and that would be within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

Back-End System:

The BMC process 172 includes a variety of capabilities including but notlimited to receiving secure data from the front-end system 104,authenticating and encrypting data and the data communication path,aggregating data, sending outbound messages, and initiating datacommunication path connections with the front-end system 104 or thesensory system 102. One of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizesthat the BMC process 172 may include a variety of other capabilities andthat would be within the spirit and scope of the present invention.

The UI 176 includes a variety of capabilities including but not limitedto graphically displaying sensory or customer information, having alogin procedure, having user annotation, having a user profile andaccount information, supporting temporary or trial periods, having anadministrative procedure, and having reporting capability. One ofordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that the UI 176 may includea variety of other capabilities and that would be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

The HW platform 162 includes a variety of capabilities including but notlimited to having continuous 24/7 operation and having a redundantgeographical system within and across suppliers. One of ordinary skillin the art readily recognizes that the HW platform 162 may include avariety of other capabilities and that would be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

The OS 164 includes a variety of capabilities including but not limitedto supporting independent OS platforms and the DBA 166 includes avariety of capabilities including but not limited to having independentdatabase management architecture, being scalable, fault tolerant anddistributed, and supporting millions of nodes. One of ordinary skill inthe art readily recognizes that the OS 164 and the DBA 166 may include avariety of other capabilities and that would be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

The COMM channel driver 168 includes a variety of capabilities includingbut not limited to supporting physical links to the front-end system 104that are independent of the HW platform 162 and the at least onediagnostic layer 170 includes a variety of capabilities including butnot limited to having isolation and simulation capability. One ofordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that the COMM channeldriver 168 and the at least one diagnostic layer 170 may include avariety of other capabilities and that would be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

Data Communication Path:

The health-monitoring system 100 communicates data from the sensorysystem 102 to the back-end system 106 through two sets of protocolswhich are the SFCM protocol 122 and the FBCM protocol 142. FIG. 2illustrates a block diagram 200 of a data communication path inaccordance with an embodiment. In the block diagram 200, data ismeasured by the at least one SCM task 236 and communicated to the SFCMprotocol 222 which connects the at least one SCM task 236 to the atleast one FCM task 250.

As a result, the SFCM protocol 222 allows the at least one FCM task 250to be aware of the state of the at least one SCM task 236 and the datameasured by the underlying sensory system 102. The data is thencommunicated to the at least one FCM task 250, in turn to the FBCMprotocol 242, and finally to the BCM process 172 to complete the datacommunication path from the sensory system 102 to the back-end system106. The BCM process 172 can receive data from different paths that arecreated by the underlying system architectures. Therefore, the back-endsystem 106 is also aware of the state of both the sensory system 102 andthe front-end system 104.

After the data is measured by the at least one SCM task 236, it isencrypted and secured before it is communicated to the SFCM protocol222. As a result, the secure data is not visible to the various layersof the underlying systems within the health-monitoring system 100. Oneof ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that a variety ofencryption methodologies can be utilized to secure the data and thatwould be within the spirit and scope of the present invention.

As above described, the system and method allow for a multiple sensorysystem that logically connects to a front-end system and in turn to aback-end system to create a health-monitoring system with a clear datacommunication path that is independent of the underlying architecture ofthe health-monitoring system. By implementing state awareness methodsand state awareness links into the sensory, the front-end, and theback-end systems, a system and method in accordance with the presentinvention achieves a highly reliable, fault tolerant and scalablehealth-monitoring system that can support a significant number of activeusers.

A health monitoring system and method has been disclosed. Embodimentsdescribed herein can take the form of an entirely hardwareimplementation, an entirely software implementation, or animplementation containing both hardware and software elements.Embodiments may be implemented in software, which includes, but is notlimited to, application software, firmware, resident software,microcode, etc.

The steps described herein may be implemented using any suitablecontroller or processor, and software application, which may be storedon any suitable storage location or computer-readable medium. Thesoftware application provides instructions that enable the processor tocause the receiver to perform the functions described herein.

Furthermore, embodiments may take the form of a computer program productaccessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providingprogram code for use by or in connection with a computer or anyinstruction execution system. For the purposes of this description, acomputer-usable or computer-readable medium can be any apparatus thatcan contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program foruse by or in connection with the instruction execution system,apparatus, or device.

The medium may be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic,infrared, semiconductor system (or apparatus or device), or apropagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include asemiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computerdiskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), arigid magnetic disk, and an optical disk. Current examples of opticaldisks include DVD, compact disk-read-only memory (CD-ROM), and compactdisk—read/write (CD-R/W).

Although the present invention has been described in accordance with theembodiments shown, one of ordinary skill in the art will readilyrecognize that there could be variations to the embodiments and thosevariations would be within the spirit and scope of the presentinvention. Accordingly, many modifications may be made by one ofordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A health-monitoring system comprising: a sensorysystem; a sensory to front-end communication (SFCM) protocol coupled tothe sensory system; a front-end system coupled to the sensory system; afront-end to back-end communication (FBCM) protocol coupled to thefront-end system; and a back-end system coupled to the front-end system;wherein the SFCM protocol communicates with the front-end system using afirst state awareness link and wherein the FBCM protocol communicateswith the back-end system using a second state awareness link.
 2. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein at least one sensory communication (SCM) taskwithin the sensory system includes at least one task that processes datameasured by the sensory system.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein theSFCM protocol receives data from the at least one SCM task andtransports the data to at least one front-end communication (FCM) taskwithin the front-end system.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the FBCMprotocol receives the data from the at least one FCM task and transportsthe data to a back-end communication (BCM) process within the back-endsystem.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein state awareness information ofthe sensory system is detected and the detected state awarenessinformation is communicated to the at least one FCM task through thefirst state awareness link.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein stateawareness information of the front-end system is detected and thedetected state awareness information is communicated to the BCM processthrough the second state awareness link.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein the BCM process utilizes the detected state awarenessinformation to receive data from the at least one FCM task.
 8. Thesystem of claim 6, wherein the BCM process utilizes the detected stateawareness information to message and establish a connection with eitherthe sensory system or the front-end system.
 9. The system of claim 7,wherein the BCM process receives data from communication paths that donot depend on underlying architectures of the sensory, front-end, andback-end systems.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the SFCM protocolis a two-way communication protocol between the sensory system and thefront-end system and the FBCM protocol is a two-way communicationprotocol between the front-end system and the back-end system.
 11. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the sensory system is a collection of bodyvital sign metrics in patch form.
 12. A method for monitoring the healthof a body, the method comprising: providing a sensory system; coupling asensor to front-end communication (SFCM) protocol to the sensory system;coupling a front-end system to the sensory system; coupling a front-endto back-end communication (FBCM) protocol to the front-end system;coupling the front-end system to a back-end system; communicating databetween the SFCM protocol and the front-end system using a first stateawareness link; and communicating data between the FBCM protocol and theback-end system using a second state awareness link.
 13. The method ofclaim 12, wherein at least one sensory communication (SCM) task withinthe sensory system includes at least one task for processing datameasured by the sensory system.
 14. The method of claim 13, furthercomprising: receiving data by the SFCM protocol from the at least oneSCM task; and transporting the data to at least one front-endcommunication (FCM) task within the front-end system.
 15. The method ofclaim 14, further comprising: receiving data by the FBCM protocol fromthe at least one FCM task; and transporting the data to a back-endcommunication (BCM) process within the back-end system.
 16. The methodof claim 12, further comprising: detecting state awareness informationof the sensor system; and communicating the detected state awarenessinformation to the at least one FCM task through the first stateawareness link.
 17. The method of claim 12, further comprising:detecting state awareness information of the front-end system; andcommunicating the detected state awareness information to the BCMprocess through the second state awareness link.
 18. The method of claim17, further comprising: utilizing the detected state awarenessinformation by the BCM process to receive data from the at least one FCMtask.
 19. The method of claim 17, further comprising: utilizing thedetected state awareness information to message and establish aconnection with either the sensory system or the front-end system. 20.The method of claim 18, further comprising: receiving data by the BCMprocess from communicating paths that do not depend on underlyingarchitectures of the sensory, front-end, and back-end systems.
 21. Themethod of claim 12, wherein the SFCM protocol is a two-way communicationprotocol between the sensory system and the front-end system and theFBCM protocol is a two-way communication protocol between the front-endsystem and the back-end system.